There’s no denying that Apple’s iTunes has been a huge success online. By offering seamless integration with the Apple iPod and iPhone, the downloadable iTunes software is easy to use and allows music lovers to download single songs or complete albums with just a few clicks.
But one big complaint that many iTunes’ users have is that Apple does not use standard MP3’s, opting instead to present songs in their own proprietary format that is incompatible with Windows Media Player, Winamp, and other popular media software.
Additionally, iTunes uses DRM, or digital rights management, to protect songs and albums from being burned to a CD, or used in non-Apple devices. These limitations have been the Achilles’ heel of iTunes for some time, and now Amazon.com is preparing to exploit this weakness with the introduction of Amazon’s MP3 music download service, available on the Amazon.com web site.
Like iTunes, the Amazon MP3 download service allows users to purchase either single songs in a mix-and-match format, or complete albums at one go. But the similarities between the two end there.
Unlike iTunes, the Amazon music downloads do not use digital rights management of any kind, and the song files are presented in standard MP3 format, which can be easily burned to CD or played with any popular media software or hardware MP3 players. Amazon MP3’s are also formatted as 256 kbps MP3 files, providing a higher-quality listening experience for the consumer.
The removal of the digital rights management code offers Amazon.com a huge advantage over iTunes, and fulfills a need that online music consumers have been demanding for many years now; namely, the ability to use their downloaded music files in any way they see fit, and play them on any number of different devices, computers or burned to a CD.
Critics are already hailing the new Amazon MP3 downloads service as a giant leap forward in the digital music industry. To make matters even worse for iTunes, Amazon.com also offers a familiar elegant layout, with a short streaming MP3 preview available of every single song in their inventory. This feature, combined with Amazon’s elegant one-click purchase button, could allow Amazon.com to dominate the online digital music industry the same way it has with books and other media.
A quick perusal of the Amazon MP3 downloads section also reveals a significant price difference. At the moment, most single songs are only $.89 on Amazon.com, with full albums priced between $8.99 and $9.99. This is significantly cheaper than the average purchase price on iTunes, and demonstrates Amazon.com’s skill at dominating online markets.
With more flexibility, streaming previews of every song, no digital rights management, higher quality standard MP3 files, and an elegant one-click purchase interface, Amazon.com could turn out to be the iTunes killer consumers have been waiting for.
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Very good article. I actually learned something!
Comment by micky — December 4, 2007 @ 3:52 am